Background and Marriage
Margaret Beddingfield, who went by the name of Ann, was a Suffolk farmer’s daughter who was born in 1742.
She married 24-year-old John Beddingfield, also a farmer, on Tuesday, July the 3rd, 1759, and his wealthy parents gave them a good farm near the village of Sternfield in Suffolk, some 18 miles from Ipswich.
Initially they seemed to have a happy marriage and Ann bore him two children; however, she soon grew tired of the daily routines of rural life.
Things deteriorated further in 1761 when her husband took on a new farmhand, 19-year-old Richard Ringe.
Within three months, he and Ann were having a passionate and indiscreet affair, and they started to devise a plot to kill John which came to fruition on the 27th of July 1762.
Ann persuaded Richard to join her in the murder by offering marriage and half of the farming estate.
The Murder Plot at Sternfield
The Failed Poison Attempt
The first plan to dispose of John was by poisoning him.
Richard tried to persuade one of the maids to put poison in John’s morning drink, which she refused to do, though she did not immediately report the attempt.
The Strangulation in the Bedroom
Plan B was to strangle John in his bed while he slept, and this was put into effect by Richard on the night of Tuesday the 27th of July 1762.
Earlier that day, John had taken Richard to help him move some cattle he was selling, and afterwards they went for a drink together.
John returned home to find Ann in bed with one of the maids, whose purpose, she claimed, was to act as a bed warmer. John did not seem pleased with this arrangement and asked Ann to come to the marital bed, which she refused to do.
John then retired to bed alone, with his wife and the servant sleeping in the adjoining bedroom.
Later that night, Richard entered his master’s bedroom and strangled him with a cord after a brief struggle during which they both fell from the bed onto the floor.
Having killed John, Richard went directly into Ann’s room and told her and the maid that the deed was done. The maid went to John’s room and found him lying dead on the floor.
The Immediate Aftermath
The following exchange was reported to have taken place:
Richard: “I have done for him.”
Ann: “Then I am easy.”
The maid cried out: “Master!” — supposing in the dark that John was alive. Ann told her to be quiet.
Richard asked Ann if anyone else was aware of what had taken place besides her and the maid.
The maid asked: “How came you here, Richard?”
Richard replied: “I was forced to it.”
Richard returned to his own quarters while Ann swore the maid to absolute secrecy. She then instructed the maid to call Richard, and when he returned, directed him into John’s bedroom under the pretense that she feared he was ill.
Richard feigned an inspection and returned to announce that John was dead.
A second maid had been awoken by the commotion and went into the bedroom. She found her master lying face down, noting that his shirt collar was torn away and that his neck was heavily bruised and swollen.
The Flawed Inquest
An inquest was convened the following day, but none of the household servants were called to give evidence.
Remarkably, after a perfunctory inquiry, the coroner’s jury returned a verdict of accidental death, concluding that John had managed to strangle himself with his own bedclothes during a violent nightmare.
At this point, there was no official record of a murder having taken place, and both conspirators believed they had escaped detection.
However, the reality of the crime rapidly soured the relationship between Ann and Richard, and the affair cooled. Richard became acutely aware of his legal peril, later stating that he felt like a dead man from that night onward.
Confession, Arrests, and Assizes Trial
The maid who had witnessed the immediate aftermath kept silent until she received her quarter’s wages, after which she disclosed the murder to her parents, who immediately contacted the parish constable.
Ann attempted to bribe the maid’s mother into silence, but the bribe was rejected—a detail that weighed heavily against her in court.
Ann was arrested two days later while attempting to flee, while Richard was apprehended at the Beddingfield farm without resistance.
The pair were committed to Ipswich Gaol and tried at the Ipswich Lent Assizes, which opened on the 21st of March 1763.
Both were charged with Petty Treason under English common law: Ann for the murder of her husband (her legal superior), and Richard for the murder of his master.
The court heard testimony from the servants as well as the surgeon who had examined John’s body. The surgeon admitted to noticing distinct ligature strangulation marks, explaining his failure to inform the coroner simply by stating that he “did not think much about it.”
Ann pleaded not guilty and maintained her innocence throughout the proceedings. Richard, after hearing the servants’ damning testimony, confessed his guilt in full.
The jury found both prisoners guilty of Petty Treason.
Under the law, the mandatory sentence for a woman convicted of petty treason was to be drawn on a hurdle to the place of execution and burnt at the stake.
For a male servant convicted of petty treason against his master, the sentence was to be drawn to the gallows, hanged by the neck until dead, and his body delivered to surgeons for anatomical dissection pursuant to the Murder Act of 1751.
On the Wednesday prior to her execution, Ann finally made a full confession in Ipswich Gaol.
Executions at Rushmere Heath
On the morning of Friday, 8 April 1763, both prisoners were bound to sledges in the courtyard of Ipswich Gaol and drawn by horses to Rushmere Heath, just north of Ipswich, where the gallows stood alongside an execution stake prepared for Ann.
Before mounting the scaffold, Richard Ringe addressed the large crowd of spectators, warning young men to avoid the snares of wicked women and to prize personal chastity.
Ann was secured to the stake with an iron chain around her waist and a rope halter placed around her neck, with the loose end threaded through a hole bored in the wooden stake.
When the signal was given, Richard was “turned off” the ladder to hang under the standard short drop.
Simultaneously, the executioner pulled the halter cord tight behind the stake to strangle Ann.
Once she was motionless and showed no further signs of life, bundles of faggots and pitch were piled around her body and set alight, reducing her corpse to ashes.
Richard Ringe’s body remained suspended for the customary hour before being removed for anatomical dissection.
At the time of their deaths, Ann was 21 years old, her husband John had been 28, and Richard Ringe was 20.
Although popular folklore frequently claims that Ann Beddingfield was the last woman burned at the stake for murdering her husband, that distinction in English legal history belongs to Mary Bailey, executed at Winchester on 8 March 1784.
The penalty of burning for petty treason was abolished by Parliament in 1790 under the Treason Act.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who was Ann Beddingfield?
Ann (born Margaret) Beddingfield was a 21-year-old farmer’s wife from Sternfield, Suffolk, who conspired with her 19-year-old farmhand lover, Richard Ringe, to murder her husband John in July 1762.
Why was Ann Beddingfield sentenced to be burned at the stake?
Under English law until 1790, a woman who murdered her husband committed “Petty Treason” rather than simple murder, because the husband was considered the king and sovereign of the domestic household. The statutory punishment for women convicted of petty treason was burning at the stake.
Was Ann Beddingfield burned alive?
No. By the mid-18th century, standard English execution practice dictated that the condemned woman be strangled to death by the hangman using a rope halter pulled through a hole in the stake before the dry faggots were lit, although accidental burning while partially conscious occasionally happened if the rope burned through prematurely.
Was Ann Beddingfield the last woman burned at the stake in England?
No. The last woman burned at the stake for petty treason for the murder of her husband was Mary Bailey at Winchester in 1784. The last woman burned in England for any crime was coiner Sophia Girton at Newgate in 1789, after which the Treason Act 1790 abolished burning entirely.
Where and when were Ann Beddingfield and Richard Ringe executed?
They were executed at Rushmere Heath near Ipswich on Friday, 8 April 1763; Ringe was hanged and dissected, while Beddingfield was strangled and burned.
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